rak1693 said:

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Dirty-8-thirty Ag said:

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jmm said:

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I guide on a ranch that has 12 of them. Roads are always great, way better than a typical ranch road. Deer, elk, ducks, dove, quail don't care. I don't see how they generate enough revenue to pay for the maintenance. Where we are, the units are about 20 years old, leak a lot of oil, catch fire and spend a lot of down time.

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They won't make enough money once the subsidies run out . The companies will go belly up and disappear, leaving the landowners with these eye sores to deal with themselves.

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This. My parents were approached in regards to some land we own in Wharton county. After talking with our lawyer and doing some research, we found that once a company goes under or the windmill stops working 50 years down the road, removing it is an extremely difficult task and you'll have difficulty getting support to remove it. The money made from it isn't significant. It's also a huge eye sore that will hurt your property value if you go to sell it.

OP, why didn't you have a say? Do you own the ranch or just lease it? The only energy I agree with is oil and the income generated from it is not even in the same stratosphere as wind or solar. Tell everyone to pound sand including those oil companies. Just tell them to pound it in the ground!

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You make the wind energy company put up a bond as part of the lease to take care of demo and reclamation.

Ahhh that's interesting. Either way, we chose not to because it's an eye sore. They absolutely ruin some beautiful country. I think that's part of why David Frankens became public enemy #1 near Del Rio.

I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up and they are taking them to wyoming and burring them? Anyone heard this?

Guy told me around casper they have a turbine graveyard.

rak1693 said:

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Ahhh that's interesting. Either way, we chose not to because it's an eye sore. They absolutely ruin some beautiful country. I think that's part of why David Frankens became public enemy #1 near Del Rio.

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I respect that decision. It certainly doesn't make it look better. One thing I am worried about is star gazing. We have some awesome star gazing and I'm hoping the blinking red lights at night wont interfere too much.

Aggie Hunter said:

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I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up

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I've heard some interesting things before, but geez.

They're being repowered/upgraded to produce more power, which in most cases does require replacing with bigger blades.

And it's a damn shame millions of acres are growing corn for cars.

Dirty-8-thirty Ag said:

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jmm said:

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I guide on a ranch that has 12 of them. Roads are always great, way better than a typical ranch road. Deer, elk, ducks, dove, quail don't care. I don't see how they generate enough revenue to pay for the maintenance. Where we are, the units are about 20 years old, leak a lot of oil, catch fire and spend a lot of down time.

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They won't make enough money once the subsidies run out . The companies will go belly up and disappear, leaving the landowners with these eye sores to deal with themselves.

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wonder how much tannerite it takes to bring one of those things down...

Not wind... But a solar outfit came to me wanting to sign a 30 year lease on a piece of property I own. Wouldn't pay for the timber, and no escrow for removal until year 15. That was just the start of the deal killers...

The money they were offering though would have been fantastic.

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wonder how much tannerite it takes to bring one of those things down...

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i may or may not know a guy who may or not have pulled up to one and shot his 300 win mag at it.

a friend who works at the local eyesore farm says they have 3 inch plate steel at the base of the generator on top of the tower.

Apache said:

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We can build nuke plants here, unlike solar panels built in China using Uygher slave labor.
Nuclear gets us 10X+ power per acre of land used & has double the lifespan.
We need more nukes!!

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I watched the documentary on Netflix about the Three Mile Island incident last week and was looking at a few articles online about it. It's crazy how fast public perception turned on nuclear energy after that and the Cherenobyl incidents. We need a way to educate the public and get people back on board if they really want to get off fossil fuels and nat gas, just straight "renewables" isnt going to cut it.

Easy fellas i just want to know how this is going to affect deer, dove and quail?

Aggie Hunter said:

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I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up

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Dust and sand doesn't usually get high enough to be a factor

Shouldn't have any long term affect on deer or quail, quail may actually get a benefit out of it, as it can deter raptors.

Dove seems to be hit or miss.

I know you're talking about locally, but we get that dang African dust rain every early summer that floats all the way across the ocean.

Those blades, once in use for a 1-2 year period, look pretty damn rough when inspected - killing lots of mosquitoes.

Fusion is coming.

agfan2013 said:

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Apache said:

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We can build nuke plants here, unlike solar panels built in China using Uygher slave labor.
Nuclear gets us 10X+ power per acre of land used & has double the lifespan.
We need more nukes!!

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I watched the documentary on Netflix about the Three Mile Island incident last week and was looking at a few articles online about it. It's crazy how fast public perception turned on nuclear energy after that and the Cherenobyl incidents. We need a way to educate the public and get people back on board if they really want to get off fossil fuels and nat gas, just straight "renewables" isnt going to cut it.

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Many attempts have been made on this front. Unfortunately people tend to hold onto the first thing they are told about anything as the truth, and both 3 Mile and Chernobyl were cases of human error. Newer designs have eliminated almost all capability for disaster via human error, but people dont want to hear it.

Things were actually starting to look up for nuclear until ***ushima happened. STP in Matagorda was gearing up to add 2 additonal reactors, but permits were pulled after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Because everybody knows that the Texas gulf coast and the Japanese coast are 100% alike in both earthquake activity and topography and obviously a huge tidal wave is imminent at any moment to wipe out STP. Or something.

Aggie Hunter said:

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I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up and they are taking them to wyoming and burring them? Anyone heard this?

Guy told me around casper they have a turbine graveyard.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

OnlyForNow said:

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Shouldn't have any long term affect on deer or quail, quail may actually get a benefit out of it, as it can deter raptors.

Dove seems to be hit or miss.

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You talking about the wind turbines or hunters?

CanyonAg77 said:

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Aggie Hunter said:

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I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up

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Dust and sand doesn't usually get high enough to be a factor

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Combine our sugar sand with our wind storms with 45 to 60 mph sustained winds and that dirt takes flight. It's especially bad this year with little wheat germination and growth. The lack of vegetative coverage on the fields makes the dust storms worse.

Ogre09 said:

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Texas is typically getting 20-40% of our power from wind and solar. It's not a fad and it's not going anywhere. Natural gas will continue to be needed to handle variability in demand and production, unless storage technology improves drastically.

I've never got the "ugly" complaint either. I think they're as pretty as a pumpjack.

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Source?

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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Aggie Hunter said:

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I heard today that the dust and sand was tearing the "wings" up and they are taking them to wyoming and burring them? Anyone heard this?

Guy told me around casper they have a turbine graveyard.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

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The "can't be recycled" really isn't true.

Older blades are harder to recycle, so it's usually cheaper to just bury them than it is to put the energy into recycling. Newer blades are actually designed with after life recycling in mind.

Even if every blade was buried and not recycled in some manner, the amount of plastic dumped in landfills in 2018 alone is about 10x the total amount of blades that could potentially be buried over the next 25 or so years.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.phpMas89 said:

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Ogre09 said:

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Texas is typically getting 20-40% of our power from wind and solar. It's not a fad and it's not going anywhere. Natural gas will continue to be needed to handle variability in demand and production, unless storage technology improves drastically.

I've never got the "ugly" complaint either. I think they're as pretty as a pumpjack.

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Source?

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https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2020/august/ercot.php

Coal and wind are just about dead even at a smidge over 20% each. Natgas is roughly half. A pisspoor measly 10% is nuclear. The last 10% is solar, hydro, biogas, and whatever.

That adds up to 110 percent. Source?

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Source?

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Trust me bro

Mas89 said:

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That adds up to 110 percent. Source?

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Government math, it all works out.

a pump jack can't be seen for miles and miles. And the constant red blinking lights at night in the otherwise dark skies of west Texas ia an abomination.

What happens to those concrete pads when the windmills are decommissioned? I know they bury the blades, which to me sound's environmentally unfriendly. Those pad sites are deep and wide and I would guess that portion of the land would basically be unusable forever.

Aggie Hunter said:

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Easy fellas i just want to know how this is going to affect deer, dove and quail?

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Nothing is more triggering that a post on wind turbines or tool boxes……

The top of the "inverted mushroom" that the turbines bolt to is about 6-10 below ground. Then the stem protrudes above that to bolt the tower to.

At decommissioning, they are supposed to remove the stem down to the top of the mushroom, leaving all the concrete at least 6 feet underground.

You should be able to graze or plow over that safely

cap-n-jack said:

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What happens to those concrete pads when the windmills are decommissioned? I know they bury the blades, which to me sound's environmentally unfriendly. Those pad sites are deep and wide and I would guess that portion of the land would basically be unusable forever.

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Decommissioned down to 5 feet in a lot of places.

CanyonAg77 said:

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The top of the "inverted mushroom" that the turbines bolt to is about 6-10 below ground. Then the stem protrudes above that to bolt the tower to.

At decommissioning, they are supposed to remove the stem down to the top of the mushroom, leaving all the concrete at least 6 feet underground.

You should be able to graze or plow over that safely

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This is what is in our contract as well. They're also required to remove the roads as well. But we have the option to keep it.

Bucketrunner said:

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a pump jack can't be seen for miles and miles. And the constant red blinking lights at night in the otherwise dark skies of west Texas ia an abomination.

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ALDS-automatic lighting detection system.

Stays dark til a plane flies within 5 miles and then comes on. Becoming more common these days.

Those fans don't work. I had just left Lala's in Murando City headed north and stopped at intersection of 359. Typical summer day and I looked up the see the three windmills directly in front of me. They didn't make a difference it was still hot as hell in front of them.